Suspense — is Hostiler than Death —
Death — tho'soever Broad,
Is Just Death, and cannot increase —
Suspense — does not conclude —
But perishes — to live anew —
But just anew to die —
Annihilation — plated fresh
With Immortality —
-
-
Sweet hours have perished here,
This is a timid room -
Within it's precints hopes have played
Now shadows in the tomb. -
-
Sweet Skepticism of the Heart —
That knows — and does not know —
And tosses like a Fleet of Balm —
Affronted by the snow —
Invites and then retards the Truth
Lest Certainty be sere
Compared with the delicious throe
Of transport thrilled with Fear — -
Sweet, to have had them lost
For news that they be saved —
The nearer they departed Us
The nearer they, restored,
Shall stand to Our Right Hand —
Most precious and the Dead —
Next precious
Those that rose to go —
Then thought of Us, and stayed. -
* * *
The sword sung on the barren heath
The sickle in the fruitful field
The sword he sung a song of death
But could not make the sickle yield[3] -
* * *
S—— in Childhood on the Nursery floor
Was extreme Old & most extremely poor
He is grown old & rich & what he will
He is extreme old & extreme poor still -
Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy,
And I am richer then than all my Fellow Men —
Ill it becometh me to dwell so wealthily
When at my very Door are those possessing more,
In abject poverty — -
Take all away —
The only thing worth larceny
Is left — the Immortality — -
Take your Heaven further on —
This — to Heaven divine Has gone —
Had You earlier blundered in
Possibly, e'en You had seen
An Eternity — put on —
Now — to ring a Door beyond
Is the utmost of Your Hand —
To the Skies — apologize —
Nearer to Your Courtesies
Than this...